Mundane Adventures
by TacoRaven
Summary: College AU. Mundane (college) adventures of Captain, Snippy, Pilot, and Engie. Content is better than the summary, I promise.


_A/N: No idea what got into me for this one. I haven't written fanfiction in a few months now, and a RomAc college AU was definitely what I was expecting to kick me back towards non-required writing. _

_Sorry-not-sorry? Anyways. _

* * *

The knock on the door was neither welcome or unexpected.

"What is it?" he snapped, sleep attempting to reclaim its feeble grasp on his already exhausted mind.

"Breakfast is almost over, Snippy!" It was the all-too-familiar voice of his fellow Residential Advisor who, as far as he had been able to discern, had the unfortunate name of Captain Seven. Most people called him Captain, yet he called few people by their first names.

No one seemed to know where he was from – or anything else about him for that matter – and any attempts at learning anything about him ended in frustration and, somehow, having even more questions than before.

"Okay," Charles grumbled, settling back into his mattress to let sleep reclaim him.

That lasted a few seconds.

"Snippy, you need ze nourishment to grow big and strong!"

Charles groaned and buried his head under his pillow, long since having given up attempting to discern if something was wrong with Captain or if the other young man was genuinely that friendly and caring.

"I'll eat lunch," Charles managed in reply.

"Ov course you will!"

Charles heard Captain's boots retreating down the hallway. He sighed heavily and rolled onto his back, keeping his eyes closed.

He had been an insomniac as long as he could remember, so taking overnight RA duty and napping didn't sound like it would change much. Not only had he underestimated his fellow dorm residents' ability to get themselves into situations that involved RA intervention between the hours of 10pm and 6am, but he had not met the RA who had agreed to take the morning shift.

It was only nine weeks into his junior year, and the enigmatic senior had already become all but the bane of his existence.

Not that he hated the man by any stretch of the imagination. His fellow RA was, in sum, overly helpful. Every morning, Charles was reminded to eat breakfast. Captain brought him lunch every day before he ran to class. How Charles was unsure, as he was confident Captain never left the dorm during his shift. He had to admit that without Captain's efforts, his diet would be far more questionable.

Additionally, RAs were encouraged to "be visible" either on their dorm floors or around campus when they weren't on-duty. The evening RA was rarely to be seen, claiming either class or sleep when someone tried to speak with him off-duty. Charles envied the man sometimes, but he needed the free room and board, so he spent most of his evenings in the floor lounge area.

Captain, for his part, had become a central part of both the dorm's atmosphere and Charles' life.

As sleep reclaimed Charles once more, his last semi-conscious thoughts were spent lamenting the short amount of time that would pass before his alarm went off.

* * *

The day had passed quickly, as most days did. The communal clock told Charles it was already 7:30. The evening RA was in his room, only the "ON DUTY" sign taped to his door indicating he still cared that he was, in fact, an RA.

Captain had returned from his classes maybe two hours ago, and had since made himself at home with a few books in the floor lounge. Charles curled himself around his laptop attempting to focus on the paper he was supposed to be writing. But he knew what 7:30 meant.

"Captaaaiiiiiinnnnnn!" a voice squealed as a black-clad body came flying out of the elevator. The teenager the voice was attached to looked as if he had just finished running a marathon and then ran home to, well, talk about it. Minus the sweat, thankfully.

"Well hello, mien leetle Pilot!" Captain returned the greeting.

Christophorus Pi Hatchenson, an Air Force ROTC student, was another semi-permanent evening fixture in the lounge. Charles swore he ran from training back to the dorm every day. His eyes were always the type of wild one only achieves through excess physical exertion. Most people called him Chris, but Captain indulged the seemingly mentally unstable man and his obsessions with all metal things that could fly by calling him "Pilot." Charles would admit to himself – but never aloud – that such indulgences probably did wonders for the freshman's psyche. At the very least, the lanky blonde had someone to talk to. Or at. Charles couldn't tell. And besides, Captain seemed to greatly enjoy Chris' attention.

The two had already become engaged in conversation that was one part excited (Chris' part) and one part pseudo-mentor (Captain's part.) Charles tried his best to tune them out.

"You okay there?" Charles heard a third voice above the chatter, but ignored it.

"Are you alright, Charles?" the voice asked again.

"Bwah!" Charles startled this time. Being directly addressed always startled him. He blamed lack of sleep and the night shift. Charles turned to face the voice. It was Alexander Gromov, a senior majoring in something related to computers, if he recalled correctly.

"I'm fine, Alexander," Charles told the other man, trying to keep confusion out of his voice.

"If you're sure. And you can call me Alex," Alex shrugged and sat down on the other end of the Couch Charles was on.

"I'm positive, Alex," Charles assured him.

"You're curled around your laptop as if you were warming up for some sort of contortionist trials," Alex pointed in Charles' general direction.

Charles surveyed himself briefly before responding, "I guess so."

The two of them lapsed into silence, but Captain and Chris' conversation more than enough to keep silence out of the room.

"What brings you out here?" Charles finally asked Alex, keeping his voice low enough as to not disturb the other two. Not that he was convinced he could, but he knew Alex was the polar opposite of both Captain and Pilot, somehow.

"My roommate has a tie on the door," Alex grimaced.

"Ah," was all Charles said.

The first time he had become acquainted with Alex was while he was the on-duty RA. The senior had been in a panic about finding enough hand sanitized and Lysol to disinfect his shared dorm room. When Charles asked why, Alex had gone into a long-winded rant about how unclean the dorm room had been and how he wasn't sure what 'they' had touched.

_"Wait, who's they?"_ Charles had cut him off, concerned about the sudden conversational appearance of other people.

_"My roommate and…whoever he brought home!" _

As it had turned out, Alex was either terrified of germs, sex, or both, and he wanted to clean down his entire half of the dorm room. Just in case they had intruded on his space. Charles had wanted to laugh, but the sheer panic Alex had been displaying reminded him to at least close the door first.

Silence took over half of the lounge occupants again. Out of the corner of his eye, Charles could see Alex was fascinated by the Captain-Pilot dynamic.

"So…what's going on over there?" Alex asked, his voice even quieter than Charles' had been.

"A conversation, I think."

"I mean…is that…hero-worship? Friendship? Flirting?"

Charles laughed before he realized he was laughing.

'Shit,' he thought, uncurling himself to sit upright. 'There goes my ability to work on this paper.'

Captain held up a hand to silence Chris, who obliged. "Ah, zey do make sounds outside ov zere own leetle worlds!"

"On occasion," Charles conceded on Alex's behalf. The other man looked panicked. Charles had gathered that whatever he did with computers had to be absolutely breathtaking if it got him this far. Or, at the very least, had removed him from all social interactions for the last several years.

"Sharing is caring!" Chris chirped. Charles looked over the youngest of the four, really noticing him for the first time. He seemed almost too young to be in college. He had vibrant green eyes and the color only enhanced the permanently wild look etched into the teen's face. His lanky frame was all muscle, so perhaps he was as active as Charles had assumed.

"Alex here is learning about the finer points of social interactions," Charles explained. Alex glared at him. Charles was pretty sure Alex would have elbowed him had they been close enough. As long as elbowing someone didn't count as things that sparked a run for a bottle of disinfectant, anyway.

"Ah, very good! Zen we can teach you, good sit Alex!" Alex looked to Charles for a way out, but Charles just curled back around his laptop. Alex swore the nighttime RA was chuckling.

'_It's still a long way to ten,'_ Charles thought, allowing the "lessons" Captain was imparting onto Alex to fade into white noise.

* * *

_A/N: I can't decide if this should be a one-shot or if I should do more. Feedback is always appreciated. :D_


End file.
